The Depths of the Night
by CrazyMihn
Summary: Tyler Lang survived the destruction of the Aurora. When he discovers that a alien race once inhabited the watery world on which he struggles to survive on, and that the same race quarantined the planet to stop the spread of the disease he is now infected with, he begins a race to uncover the secrets of the planet, and to find another way off-world. At least he has help...
1. Chapter 1: The survivor

I watched helplessly as the alien weapon fired a bolt of energy at the descending ship. Unlike the Aurora, the tiny vessel had little mass. The engine pylons spilt away, and crashed into the water. The bridge simply detonated like a bomb. A piece of the wreckage plunged towards me, trailing smoke. I scrambled down the hill, and hit the floor. The wreckage clipped the hill, and a piece of metal hit my head. Just before I passed out, I remember hearing the alien structure resuming its original position.

I should probably introduce myself to whoever receives this log. My name is Tyler Lang. I am (or rather was) a robotics engineer aboard the ACS Aurora, a Alterra exploration vessel sent to set up a phasegate for travel between areas of deep space. I am the only survivor of the ship's crash. We were performing a orbital slingshot around a water world when the ship was hit on the port side by a direct energy weapon. I was performing minor maintenance on one of the ship's PRAWN suits when I was knocked to the floor. I stumbled to the nearest escape pod bank, and launched. On the way down, I was knocked unconscious by a piece of metal. When I woke up, I was stranded on a alien world with no hope and no help. That was 2 months ago.

In the time since I was stranded, I managed to survive pretty well. The area I crashed in had plenty of titanium and was quite shallow. i call it the Safe Shallows. Within 2 weeks of my arrival, I had set up a small seabase, and was already growing edible food. Within a month, my little base had expanded and now had a reliable source of energy from a bioreactor. That's when I received a message from a rescue ship.

A ship called the Sunbeam had picked up the distress signal from the Aurora, and was coming to pick me up. I came to this beach, where I found a alien base. As the sunbeam came in to land, the 'tower' of the alien construct turned out to be a weapon. Then the remains of the Sunbeam crashed, and I was knocked out.

When I woke up two minutes later, the once beautiful beach was scattered with debris. I stumbled to my feet, and ran towards the largest piece. It appeared to be the cargo bay of the sunbeam, and was mostly intact. It was also looked like it was still mostly intact. I clambered through a hole in the hull, and into the hold. Inside was a couple of crates which were stamped with the logo for medical supplies. To my shock, a woman was lying on the floor. She was still alive.

The next day, I transported the woman to my sub inside a sealed cargo container. Once we got there, I opened the lid, and pulled her out. I left her on the single bed in my living quarters, and began moving supplies from the wreckage to the sub. My sub was a Cyclops, a massive submarine that I had constructed from blueprints I found in the Aurora's wreckage.

I moved the last crate to the sub, and began the trek back to the seabase. I was engrossed with piloting, so it wasn't until I had the barrel of my stasis rifle in the middle of my back that I realised the woman had woken up.


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to the Ocean

The woman jabbed the gun into my back again.

"Don't move," she said. "Where am I? What's going on?"

I started to turn around.

"Quit that!" she exclaimed. "I'm armed, and I'm not afraid to use this."

I sighed. "You're on the surface. The Sunbeam has been destroyed."

She jabbed the gun again. "Why would you do that? Who are you?"

I turned around. " I didn't destroy the ship, and you currently have a stasis rifle pointed at me. You would freeze me in place, but you'd also do the same to yourself." I smiled. "My name's Tyler. What's yours?"

She lowered the gun hesitantly. She looked young, and my god! She had one of the most striking faces I had ever seen. Her hair was bright red, like one of the beautiful sunsets this planet had.

"I'm Sasha. Sasha Ryan."

I took the rifle off her, and laid it on the floor. "Good. Nice to meet you Sasha."

She looked out the domed window. "Where are we?"

I checked the navigational panel, and grinned. "We are 15m below sea level, and about 150m from my seabase. I think I have a spare survival suit onboard…."

Ten minutes later, the two of us were aboard the habitat I had constructed. The base was one of the first things I set up here. It was mainly a place to replenish my oxygen supply, as well as a living space. Initially, it composed of a airlock, and a small multipurpose module, and was powered by solar energy. Now, it had twelve large rooms, as well as about 100m of hallway. It was also powered by a reliable bioreactor.

I began showing Sasha around.

"I'll have to set up a seperate living space for you, but for the moment, use mine. I'll sleep in the medbay."

She thanked me, and asked to see the base. .

"I'll give you a full tour later. for now, this is what I know about our situation"

She listened carefully as I explained what I currently knew about our situation. i then asked what her job was.

"I was the Sunbeam's Systems Operator I made sure that the nav computers were functioning properly, maintained the ship's AI, and kept the computer systems running. Hell, I could even…"

Just then, the seabase groaned. I told Sasha to stay in the room, and ran to the computer room. The room was a small module with a big screen on one wall, and a bunch of terminals ringing the rest of the space. I ran to the closest console, and tapped a icon. The screen lit up with the camera feeds from the life-pod.

"Oh no…." I said.

On the screen, the Aurora was being shaken by a bunch of explosions. The ship had already been rent open by a massive explosion two weeks ago, but now the secondary systems were detonating. It also meant that there would be a tidal wave…..

I ran back to the habitation unit, closing as many bulkheads as I could along the way. As I arrived, I saw Sasha running back along the corridor.

"I told you to…"

I stopped mid-sentence. A wave of water was rushing after her. The base had breached.


	3. Chapter 3: We have a Breach

The water rushed down the corridor, and I began to run for the other bulkhead. Just as I was about to dive through the hatch, the water hit a bulkhead that slammed down from the roof. Simular thuds sounded through the base. Beside me, Sasha smiled.

"Thank goodness for emergency seals. What do you think those tremors were?"

I frowned. "The Aurora, my ship. It had a drive breach a little while back, and began releasing radiation into the water. I fixed the generators, but they must have overloaded and detonated."

Sasha stopped smiling. "But the Aurora was sending the distress signal. That means…"

"Yeah," I said. "There's no one else coming for us. We're on our own."

After I got Sasha settled again, I set out to repair the broken corridor. I walked to the nearest airlock, and pulled on my rebreather. The yellow helmet instantly began displaying my HUD, with my medical stats displayed in the bottom right. Apparently my infection had gotten worse. While I double checked my seals, I thought back to the first day I spent in the Habitat.

 _I looked around the circular chamber, marvelling at how much work it had taken for this place to exist. Three months salvaging enough titanium to build this ten square meter room. Another two programming upgrades into the handheld fabrication unit. Another week spent figuring out how to attach all the systems I needed. After all that, I finally had a permanent home. My PDA beeped urgently. A message was displayer on the screen:_

 _'URGENT! SELF SCAN NEEDED! INFECTION DETECTED!'_

 _I pulled out my handheld scanner. The camcorder-shaped unit flashed as it performed a scan of my body. A red warning sign appeared on the OLED screen._

 _"You have been infected with a waterborne disease. This disease has begun to affect organ function. More information is needed for a treatment diagnosis."_

 _I sat down on my new bed, the sheets taken from the Aurora. I remembered how my father had died of a alien disease while fighting with the TSF against the Kharaa. I though about this and made a decision. That wouldn't be the way I went out. I'd go out back home on Takei-171_

I sighed, now fully focused on the present. I swam out, ready for anything. I needed to check on the broken tube…

 ** _Sorry about the wait for tbis chapter. I got caught up in exams and assessments. BUT Now I'm back to writing this. So anyway, chapter 4 will be out sometime within the next week or so. Anyway, please review. I'm always eager to hear your opinion!_**


	4. Chapter 4: Flaming hair, seabase repair

I swum out into the deep, blue ocean, my habitat builder tool held in my right hand. The base looked OK from the outside, but I could already see the broken tube. It looked to be one of the glass tubes I had installed. At the time, I had reckoned that the view would be worth the added risk. In the present, I cursed myself for being so stupid. I swum up to the damaged tube, and noted that the hole was too big for the Habitat Repair Tool I was also carrying on my belt to repair. I considered my other options, and decided on replacing the damaged section altogether. I tapped some icons on the builder tool's small holographic touch screen, aimed the device at the broken corridor, and pulled the trigger. Beams of light danced out from the device as the onboard computer used microlasers to molecularly scan the damaged module. It then deployed the deconstruction nanites into the aquatic environment. The tiny robots swum up to the tube in seconds, causing the structure's appearance to dissolve into strands of light. Then, the nanites returned to the builder, before deconstructing themselves in a flash of light. The tunnel was now gone, and the opposite sections had been automatically sealed by the nanites. The base computer announced in the default voice that the base had begun draining. I flicked the builder to construct, and activated my PDA. The slim device synced with my handheld builder, and bought up the build menu. Holstering my tool, I used my now free hand to select the standard corridor unit from the build menu. I then reactivated the builder, and built a new corridor section. Adding hull reinforcement, and a single solar panel on the top of the device. I then swum back to the airlock, and re-entered the base.

I sat down in the mess hall unit near the now-sodden living quarters and sipped at a cup of fresh coffee. I opened a packet of potato mix chips, and leant back in my chair.

"Please tell me what in the name of hell is happening on this sodden fuck-up of a planetoid?"

I opened my eye, annoyed. Now sitting across from me was a very pissed Sasha. She was literally steaming, as her hair was currently on fire. On the table in front of her was a deactivated maintenance droid.

"What the fuck did you do to Frank?" I exclaimed, gestulating at the prone robot. Frank was my sole companion before Sasha turned up. I'd first met him when CTO Yu had tried (and failed) to demonstrate his enhanced cognitive capabilities. He was now the only 'member' of the Aurora's crew to survive the crash, and had some extensive behavioural mods made by me.

"What did HE try to do to ME don't you mean?" Sasha screamed. "I walk into your command centre, get jump-scared by this floating douchebag, and then am informed that 'Only Authorised Alterra Personnel are allowed in the Model III Command Unit'. When I try to inform him otherwise, he sets my hair on fir with a welding torch. I only just put it out!"

"Actually, your hair is still…"

"Don't interrupt me! She shrieked, before pausing and widening her eyes in shock.

"My…hair…is still…on fire…?" she asked, her voice low and timid. I nodded, and handed her a fire extinguisher. She promptly sprayed her hair out, and slumped in a seat, her head and shoulders dripping with CO2 foam.

I sighed. "Welcome to hell."

Later that evening, I sat in the same room, telling Sasha about our current situation. She listened attentively, only pausing to ask small clarification questions. After I was done, she crumpled up her packet of rice snacks, sipped the last dregs of her coffee, and said one thing.

"So how the hell are we getting offworld?"

The next morning, I was awoken by Sasha. The computer had managed to dry out the sleeping quarters by raising the internal heating to increase the evaporation rate. The extra water was very useful in creating the latest water rations from the water recyclers. I yawned, and stretched as she respectfully left the cramped confines of the medbay in which I had spent the night. Next time, I was sleeping in the Cyclops.

I walked into the mess hall, which had become our default meeting place. I ordered a coffee from the wall mounted coffee machine. Since I had managed to crack the code preventing the builder from constructing a object deemed 'unnecessary to survival' like the coffee machine, I had managed to hack it so that it also produced soda, hot chocolate, milk and tea. The orange juice update was not far off in my opinion, but recent matters had delayed my coding attempts. I sat down at the table, and began the morning meeting.

"There are three things on our agenda, Sasha.," I started, confidently. "The first is inspecting the damaged ship, and seeing if we can get the distress signal up and running. I'll also need to modify it, to inform any rescue ships to keep their distance until further notice."

I paused, and bought up a data log on my PDA. I showed it to Sasha.

"While you were unconscious, I entered the alien cannon which destroyed both the Sunbeam and the Aurora. I found information which suggests that this planet was previously inhabited by an alien race who build several facilities around the planet. We'll need to cure my disease before it can be shut down. also, I tried to avoid letting you contact any water that hasn't been through the filters, but unfortunately you've been infected with the disease the aliens called 'Carar'. I have it too, and we need to find the alien cure, which I believe is hidden in a facility deep beneath the shallows around us."

I smiled, and announced the third objective of our mission.

"Our third objective: Get the hell of this world."

I entered the seamoth, and set the moonpool arms to 'drop mode'. The robotic arms holding up the submersible released, dropping the tiny vessel into the water beneath. I looked back at Sasha, who was sitting in the co-pilot seat of the vessel. The original seamoth blueprint was for the smaller one-seater version. I had unlocked the other form of vessel, a two-seater exploration type with inbuilt stealth capabilities and armed with a pair of stasis cannons, which could keep hostile creatures stunned for hours.

"Where are we going?" asked Sasha. "This model can't reach the ship…oh. We're going to your Cyclops."

"Yeah," I replied lamely, focused on driving the vessel through the spires of coral and rock. I rounded the corner and approached my massive Cyclops, a vessel I had named 'Unknown World'. The ship was painted white, with yellow and red striping. The automated bay doors on the bottom of the ship opened as I approached, and I docked the submarine with the Cyclops. I opened the hatch, and climbed out. Sasha clambered out after me. I had left my Cyclops in silent running mode, to avoid any disturbance by sharks or other hostile creatures. I had a photo of the Cyclops being humped by a over-friendly Gasopod on the wall. I thought it bought a little humour to the almost featureless main room.

We walked through the small sleeping quarters I had constructed in the corridor the bridge. As we walked out, robotic arms began fixing a slight dent in the seamoth's hull that had occurred on the journey here. I walked into the bridge, and powered up the massive vessel. A holographic sonar display blinked into life, and a articulated arm slipped a chair underneath be, easing me into a sitting position. I saw Sasha jump as a chair came out of the floor at the damage control console she had moved to.

"Just sit in it. This baby moves faster than you'd think, with the mods I've given her," I assured my new friend. "Just sit back, and enjoy the ride."

I pushed the throttle level up to full pelt, and the massive sub leapt forwards into the deep, dark, blue of the unknown. We were on our way.

 ** _BIG, BIG thanks to my continued readers. Just BTW, I need some fans of Jim C Hines Magic Ex Libris series to read my new story in the book category. It's been almost a week, and I have had ZERO readers. I guess no one knew I added it as a category. So please, even if you're not a fan, please read it. The series is about a group of modern-day magicians who can pull items (such as wands, guns and even fire spiders) out of paper books. The series has concluded now with the latest book Revisionary. Please guys, just for me?_**


	5. Chapter 5: The Aurora

The Cyclops shuddered as we bumped against rock outcrop. Sasha glared at me as I tried to right the large sub. As we moved towards the Aurora, we had been caught in a riptide current that had swept us into a rocky area that I had never been in before. I struggled with the controls, as the current pushed us sideways through the water.

"Where in the name of hell did you learn to drive?" exclaimed Sasha, trying to stay in her seat. "Grand Turismo XXVI?"

"Not now!" I grunted between clenched teeth. I yanked the wheel to one side, and pushed the throttle lever up to full. The Cyclops yanked free of the current, and moved away from the rocks. I gave a sigh of relief. Up ahead, the rent hull of the Aurora loomed, the jagged and broken metal crawling with small cave crawlers.

"What the Fuck are those?" screamed Sasha. "Facehuggers?"

I shook my head. "Cave crawlers. Carnivorous scavengers which seem to use places like the Aurora as breeding grounds. Last time I was here, I attempted to clear them out." I cleared my throat. "That didn't go well."

She grimaced as one of the crawlers snagged a passing fish. The crawler seemed to flex upwards on four spindly legs, before savagely ripping the piscine creature to bits. Blood floated through the clear water. I turned away from the creatures, and approached a small seabase I had built for the sole purpose of docking my ship.

"Is that a seabase?" asked Sasha. "Shouldn't the blast have damaged it?"

I nodded. "It has a auto repair module, and probably repaired itself. I can't do that with our base because the repair module doesn't exactly do much in a oxygen environment. Or act in a safe way towards living beings."

I docked the Cyclops with the long boom that extended from the small unit. I stepped into main room, and put on my rebreather. Sasha followed, and put on hers.

"This seabase is depressurised so that the repair sequence doesn't set the air on fire. Probably should warn you that it doesn't exactly clean up after repairing the hull. Watch your step."

We stepped into the long boom. This section was pressurised at first, but soon vented to allow the inner door to open. I stepped into the inside of the service station.

Inside, most of my gear I stored here was scattered all over the floor. A canister of CO2 fire suppressant had obviously broken, and congealing foam was all over the floor. The screens around the dark and cramped room showed that the base was fully operational. I grabbed a repulsion cannon off a rack on the wall, and checked the charge. Sasha picked up a stasis rifle from the floor, and attached it to the side of her backpack. I opened a hatch on the wall. Since a standard airlock would be unnecessary, I simply had built the station with a hole in the floor to drop out of. The water couldn't come up, and there was no need to have a large airlock. I opened the cover on the hole, and jumped in. Sasha followed, closing the cover behind her. We swam towards the wrecked ship, out rebreathers letting off clouds of bubbles as we went.

As we stepped into the wrecked forward section, the disgusting cave crawlers soon cottoned onto our presence. I began using the repulsion cannon to fling them away, as Sasha covered my rear. Luckily for me, the fires that had once burned in the starship were no longer a problem. As we moved along, I spotted some new boxes of supplies that had been dislodged or otherwise moved into a accessible place. I managed to collect some various food and drink supplies, as well as a few medkits. We soon reached the point in the ship where the cave crawlers were unwilling to go (I still had to figure out what cased such a aversion in the strange parasites). We ducked into the interior of the vessel.

Inside, the destroyed corridor was more damaged than ever. The lights that once flickered were now out, and some new fires burned in some of the damaged areas. We descended the stairs to the port cargo bay, and noted that the explosion had opened some new passages. We headed into the one I knew headed to the previously inaccessible distress beacon bay. Along the way, I found a few more items, including one that I believed to be a small plasma pistol of some kind. However, the device was dead, and I couldn't repair it at that time.

We entered the bay, and found a sickening sight. Inside the way were four bodies. They were in various states of decay, and were still wearing uniforms. I checked the identity tags frantically.

"Damm," I said softly. "So he didn't make it off the ship."

"What?" asked Sasha. "Is that…a friend?"

"Used to be," I replied. "Executive Repair Chief Chekov. Good guy, great mechanic, now dead."

I saluted his corpse, and turned to the device that sat in the middle of the room.

"Damm," I exclaimed. "This fucking thing is dead!"

Sasha grinned. "Well lucky you have a systems engineer with you. Give me that toolkit."

I gaped. "That is a highly advanced piece of Alterra technology. There is no power to the ship, the thing looks about as intact as Swiss cheese, and we don't exactly have a lot of spare parts,"

She gave me a look, and ticked off various facts on her fingers. "I have a PhD in Mechatronic engineering, three masters in advanced cybernetics, at least two hundred hours of experience repairing bits of a interstellar starship, and I'm the most experienced engineer on the planet. You really think I can't do this?"

I nodded. "Yep!"

She grinned. "Well, prepare to be proved as wrong as the Theory of Relativity…"

The next three hours were spent rushing around the wrecked ship. Sasha had be retrieve various bits and pieces that she calibrated my scanner to spick up. After another two hours, the distress beacon was looking almost fully repaired. The ship's reactor core as now fully out of commission, so Sasha had me retrieve three power cores from the wrecked seamoth's in the rent open repair bay. When I returned, she had connected up a small metal box to the wrecked transmitter.

"The power supplies for the seamoth subs can't possibly power a long-range Quantum Entangled communications system!" I feebly protested, knowing that my protests would go unheard. Sasha connected two wired up, and them grabbed the power cells. she then inserted them into several ports on the side of the transmitter. Picking up a large switch, she smiled and said: "Let's do this!"

She flicked the switch. The tall column began to light up, and several lights flickered on nearby consoles. Sasha quickly accessed the distress message input window, and typed up a revised distress message. She hit another button, and a pulse travelled up the column in the middle of the room.

"Distress message away, and repeated every 22 seconds!" exclaimed Sasha. "Oh, and by the way: yes, you can use the power cells. this thing uses a surprisingly small amount of energy. Well, at lest it does now…".

I shook my head, and we left the room. However, as we left the structure, we didn't notice the slender figure following behind. It stopped, and examined us through multifaceted eyes. The creature continued following, as we walked away, unaware of things to come…

 _Sorry about the Delay for this chapter. Guess that I forgot about writing this. By the way, you can now realise that the two of them may not be the only intelligent lifeforms on the planet. As well as this, my Warhammer 40k story is up, and I would like to know the opinion of people on the horrific new 8_ _th_ _edition. PM me with your thoughts. See ya!_


	6. Chapter 6: Attack of the Warper

The Cyclops slowly glided to a halt as I eased off the throttle, and parked the massive vessel in her makeshift docking bay. I smiled as I remembered trying to figure out how to dock the vessel in the Safe shallows without scraping the coral, or damaging the hull against the many rockforms and coral tubes that littered the watery haven. It had taken a couple of months to use the Terraforming device (included in the original fabrication blueprints for constructing rocky extrusions to use as walls, columns and temporary structures) to dig out a shallow pit into a area my PDA marked as having the least ecological impact to the reef. I considered building a docking arm, but decided that that was not something I had time for.

Beside me in the Damage Control chair, Sasha was using the external repair drones to fix a long gash in the hull, made by a rocky outcrop that had obviously become dislodged by the recent explosion. The gash had flooded the launch bay, before being stopped by the automatic doors that closed off the bay when the hangar was opened. Sasha was still grinning from her victory back at the Aurora, and ignored my glares completely, so caught up in her victorious euphoria. That was probably why we didn't notice the creature that ascended the ladder behind Sasha. At least until it was too late.

"Look out!" I screamed, as the octopus-like creature extended it's tentacles towards Sasha. She dodged the grasping feelers, and sprang towards the nearby fire extinguisher that sat on one wall. The creature moved forwards, and reached towards her. I quickly grabbed my stasis rifle, and charged the chronocapacitors that powered the time-freezing effect. I fired a quick squib towards the creature, dodging behind the main programmer interface as I did. Sasha threw herself away from the stasis blast, and managed to make it just in time. The creature froze as the blast contained it in a field of temporary non-time. I pulled out my thermoknife, and threw it at the creature, aiming for where I suspected the brainstem would be. The blade carved through the frozen creature, as the momentum of the movement kept it going out the other side of the stasis field. The blast soon dissipated, and the creature slumped, dead. My suspicions were confirmed seconds later, as purple electricity danced around the wound, and as I recognised the creature.

"What was that?" Exclaimed Sasha, her speech punctuated by bursts of panting. "Some space octopus?"

"Sort of," I replied grimly. "That is a alien cyborg, designed to enforce the planet-wide quarantine. Better known to me as a Warper. They've learned to go on land."

A couple of hours later, I sat with Sasha in the mess hall, a cup of hot chocolate sitting in front of me. Sasha was eating a bowl of cereal, something that I had managed to get the fabricator to produce from Chinese Potato Plants, some GM Strawberries I had found in the Aurora's wreck and cultivated, and some synthesised sugar that I had made. Thank goodness for Alterra Digitraining, specifically the Advanced Chemistry course I chose to take in High School.

"So you were safe in the seabase because the 'squids' couldn't get in?"

I nodded. "The Warpers are programmed to defend the alien constructs. A couple of months before you 'arrived', I got recognised as a Threat when I attempted to sabotage the Thermal Reactor in the Lava Zone. The Warpers couldn't previously survive in a oxygen atmosphere, so I was safe in the Seabase and Cyclops, plus I was also safe when on the artificial island the Planetary Defence Weapon is embedded in. The facilities that the Aliens use seem to also have a oxygen atmosphere, so I was safe in those-except from the repair robots inside the alien constructs. They also have a thing going for me. The Warpers seem to have found a way around the oxygen issue."

I gestured to the open hatch leading into the medbay. The dead warper was being dissected by four robotic arms attached to the ceiling above the surgery bed. "They seem to have developed artificial lungs that they can use on land. It seems that their alien power supply is depleted by this, as far as I can tell from the scans. As well as this, they also can't warp in a oxygen environment, but that could change at any time."

Sasha nodded, and crunched a few more cereal clusters. She swallowed, and looked up.

"How do we beat these things?"

 ** _Authors note: Thank you everyone for your continued readership. I would like to thank Dr Nafario, Eclipsed Blade, Hutcjxwvvu, ReaperOfShadows125, The-pomftato932, TheDunkBro, and curryson for adding this story to their favourites, and I would like to also thank ALienCookie, insane sane89, and nova4026 for following this story. More chapters soon, as I have a lot of time during the next few weeks to write more. See Ya!_**


	7. Chapter 7: Kids, Don't Gamble

_Stardate N1C7C01.8879-Alpha-12. Earth Year 2378. ACS Aurora._

"Hey Tyler!"

I turned as Anton Y. Chekov ran up behind me. He was grinning massively, something that I found quite unusual. It was my first day working aboard the Alterra Capital Ship Aurora, the most advanced ship currently in service in the Alterra Fleet. We had just departed from the Diamorrus V Spacedock, and were departing for the Adrianne sector. I was assigned to Chekov's repair team, and I was quite surprised to find my section supervisor acting friendly towards me.

"Sir, what is…"

Chekov shook his head vigorously. "No, no. You are off duty, yes? When I am off duty, and any of my team are off duty, you are not to call me sir. Understood?"

"Yes si…yes…I actually don't know what to call you si…r."

He smiled, and extended his hand. "Call me Anton."

 _Five years later…_

I sat in the workshop module, tinkering with the plasma pistol I had found aboard the Aurora. Sasha had gone to sleep hours ago, and I had found that I couldn't get back to sleep. Since finding the body of one of my best friends, I had been unable to sleep. I grabbed a laser spanner from a small toolbox, and absentmindedly fiddled with the settings on the Matter Converter Matrix inside the gun before me. I had hoped that Anton would of made it off the ship. He was a great guy, and always seemed to have uncanny luck in everything. I had seen him spend 200 credits in the shipboard casino, and win back triple that amount. That was also his biggest problem: he was a addict to gambles. No matter the situation, he would always raise the stakes and try to use the riskiest methods to get his work done. Chief Technical Officer Yu always used to call him 'the luckiest bastard in the department'. Guess he was wrong.

A few hours later, I was ready to give up on the damm plasma pistol. The device was in perfect condition, but would always give out when powered. On my 45th attempt, Sasha stumbled through the open hatchway into the workshop, a blanket draped around her shoulders.

"You do realise that it's 4:15 in the morning, right?"

I grimaced. "Just keeping watch. Why are you up?"

She groaned. "Your damm robot seems to have a dislike of my hair. He attempted to repair a hull breach-right on top of my head."

I smiled. "Should probably patch the software. Maybe you could help?"

She grinned, and gave a hesitant thumbs up.

The plasma gun sparked, and I looked down quickly.

"Shit! The plasma cartridge has breached."

I quickly went through the protocols I had memorised for repairing such a breach. I didn't have a fusion torch handy, my laser cutter didn't have enough voltage, and I also didn't have a priest handy to confess my sins to. My only option: improvise.

"Hand me that tension wrench!"

Sasha passed the device to me, and watched as I used it to bend the casing into a temporary seal. I managed to keep the casing intact, but both seal the breach and keep the cell in a shape that would fit into the plasma rifle. I grabbed my oxyacetylene torch, and began welding the metal back together. I cut power to the torch, and set the cartridge down on the table.

"That should do for now."

"What the fuck did you do? That welding torch could of set the entire seabase on fire!"

I grinned. "What I did was take a lesson from a old friend: I gambled a bit, and succeeded."


	8. Update: Deletion Imminent

Hey everyone, it's Crazy Minh. For those who are currently favouriting and following this story, I have decided to do a massive rewrite later this year. As no two iterations of the same story can be on this website at once, I will be deleting this story around the start of February this year. If you would like to favourite or follow the new version when I publish the first chapter, please consider following me so that you know when the new version will be released. I will be revamping and rewriting the story, so it may be completely different in some places, and exactly the same in others. Consider it a reboot. My reasoning is that I have improved greatly as a author since I published the last chapter of DOTN, and as a result feel that the story would be unbalanced if I were to publish a new chapter at this time. Therefore, I will be deleting it and rewriting it with my improved skills present. Thank you for providing readership of the story in it's early iteration. For more info, Private Message me, or leave a review before the 1st Feb 2018.

Crazy Minh


End file.
